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Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy ... see more see more... , Ned Beatty , Beatrice Straight , Arthur Burghardt , Bill Burrows , Kathy Cronkite , Darryl Hickman , Roy Poole , William Prince , Marlene Warfield , Lee Richardson , Jordan Charney , Ed Crowley , Jerome Dempsey , Todd Everett , Conchata Ferrell , Gene Gross , Stanley Grover , Lance Henriksen , Mitchell Jason , Paul Jenkins , Ken Kercheval , Ken Kimmins , Michael Lombard , Lane Smith , Fred Stuthman , Michael Lipton , Russ Petranto , Bernie Pollack , Lynn Klugman , Pirie MacDonald , Sasha von Scherler , Theodore Sorel , John Carpenter , Kenneth Kimmins , Ted Sorel

A trenchant satire of "trash TV," Network seems to grow only more relevant with each passing year. Howard Beale (Peter Finch), the dean of newscasters at the United Broadcasting System, is put out to ... read more read more...pasture because he "skews old." Network executive Max Schumacher (William Holden), Howard's best friend, is forced to deliver the bad news. Beale can't stomach the idea of losing his 25-year post as anchorman simply because of age, so in his next broadcast he announces to the viewers that he's going to commit suicide on his final program. Network head Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall) is all for kicking Beale out then and there, but when it looks as though the UBS is going to have its greatest ratings ever on the night of Beale's self-destruction, ambitious programming exec Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) talks Hackett into treating that fateful final telecast as a special event. Naturally, Beale doesn't go through with it -- but he does begin rambling about the horrible state of the world in general and television in particular. He concludes his tirade by admonishing his viewers to "Go to the window and shout as loud as you can: 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!'" With that, Howard Beale becomes the hottest TV personality in America, and Diana becomes the network's fair-haired girl. She draws up plans to treat the nightly news broadcast as garish entertainment (complete with a psychic), all built around the rants of Beale, billed as "The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves." Network won Oscars for Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay as well as for three of four acting categories -- Dunaway for Best Actress, Peter Finch for Best Actor (in the only posthumous Oscar yet awarded), and Beatrice Straight for Best Supporting Actress, in one of the shortest-screen-time performances ever to win an Oscar. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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93% liked it

32,305 ratings

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90% liked it

48 critics

R, 2 hr. 1 min.

Directed by: Sidney Lumet

Release Date: November 27, 1976

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DVD Release Date: May 16, 2000

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Stats: 3,094 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (3,094)

  • 366weirdmovies
    May 9, 2012
    366weirdmovies
    Once-respected news anchor Howard Beale loses his mind and starts ranting during a live broadcast; since the UBS network is in last place the executives make the controversial decision to keep him on the air, and ratings soar as the news becomes a circus with Beale presiding as t... read morehe "mad prophet of the airwaves." NETWORK is what all movie satires should aspire to be; the humor is cutting, passionate, purposeful and unforgiving. Paddy Chayefsky's dialogue is grandiose and unashamedly overwritten but brilliant---the film is packed with unforgettable monologues including William Holden dumping Faye Dunaway, Ned Beatty explaining that there are no nations anymore, and Peter Finch's iconic "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" rant.
  • fb1038944442
    January 11, 2012
    fb1038944442
    Network is a hilarious yet sad hate letter, a precscient black 'satire' about the evil world of television from 1976. Satire is in parentheses because every last one of its apparently outlandish over the top predictions about the bleak and soul destroying aspects of TV though ra... read moretings grabbing corporate capitalism have come to pass - in spades - 'reality TV' before the term had been coined. I know this because I work in the world of 'reality TV', but all you need to do prove this is turn on your TV set.

    The star of the film, and creator of a bitter, beautifully structured and frequently poetic script is that screenwriting colussus Paddy Chayefsky. Second most valuable players are the deeply talented and spectacular cast, academy award winners Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, Beatrice Straight, but upon a recent viewing, William Holden, who is the heart and soul of this film. One of the best ever leading men in Hollywood history for manliness, looks and acting chops, Holden gives an indelible, sad eyed, heartfelt and intelligent performance that haunts you long after screening. He was cheated of an oscar for this one. Thirdly, the wonderful Sidney Lumet (arguably the highest quality and longest spanning list of Hollywood critical classics - over four decades -of any director) directs up to his usual high standards, but this is Chayefsky's film.

    Yes, Chaefysky's script is preachy and declamitory throughout with very long and discursive speeches spewing his venom about the current (30 years ago) state of TV and corporate American that has only become more dire in subsequent decades. However, these wonderful actors pull off each word with such panache and briliance that you almost don't notice the clunky aspects of the storytelling.

    I do wonder if a young person (under 25) would even perceive Network as a satire at all, except for a network decision to assassinate its anchorman for ratings. To them, this would just seem like a drama about the way things are, and a realistic one at that. Hmmm. I take that back, even that assination plot doesn't seem that outrageous today. (Osama navy seals takedown, anyone? A ratings hit if there ever was one.)
  • DragonEyeMorrison
    December 2, 2011
    DragonEyeMorrison
    Resonates even more these days.
  • thefog1331
    August 23, 2011
    thefog1331
    A terminally slow and boring satire of network television. It's got a few funny moments here and there ("Man, give her the f***ing overhead clause") but there's just too much slow moving drama and way too much pseudo-cerebral dialogue to keep me interested. I'll stick to Broadcas... read moret News which isn't exactly the satire critics say it is but it's certainly a MUCH more entertaining look at the TV business.
  • stevenecarrier
    August 12, 2011
    stevenecarrier
    Sidney Lument's "Network" is one of my top 5 favorite films. You'll be hard-pressed to find anything as good as this. Honestly, this is a brilliant, tour de force, masterpiece featuring one of the best original screenplays ever written (courtesy of the great Paddy Chayefsky). Wil... read moredly prophetic, scathingly funny and featuring some of the best acting you'll ever come across (Faye Dunaway sends chills down my spine), "Network" is a bon-a-fide classic and a all-time personal favorite.
  • fb619846742
    July 5, 2011
    fb619846742
    A flawlessly written deconstruction of the television industry, concerning a raving lunatic of an anchor (Peter Finch) and how the network he works for exploits his obvious insanity for higher profits and excellent ratings. In addition to the fabulous plotting, the thing that rea... read morelly keeps this film intriguing is the stellar dialogue, delivered by magnificent actors at the top of their respected games. Dunaway's performance is the real show-stealer, as a television head whose entire life is ruled by the tube, and as a result it destroys her relationship with a once-committed family man (William Holden), who is starting to realize his career in television was just a big waste itself. Definitely a satire with ferocious bite, and an ending completely out of left field - this movie remains a force throughout its duration.
  • FrizzDrop
    May 6, 2011
    FrizzDrop
    Network does not rip images from the televison screen and cram them down your throat. Instead, it shows what happens behind the scenes of the programs we as Americans view every day. Howard Beale (Finch) starts out as a depressed and suicidal newscaster, blatantly rousing his net... read morework (UBC) for his last hurrah. This exploitation is at first cause for reprimand, but slowly evolves into a staked claim for a share in ratings. So begings the saga of The Howard Beale show, half political diatribe/ half ranting, raving, soliloquy. Though he is left to range free as long as the audience keeps yelling his catchphrase, when he steps out of line he is chastised by the network head (Beatty) in one of the scariest tirades I've ever come across. Behind the scenes is Diana Christensen (Dunaway), from a generation that can't hold still long enough to stay on one channel, her programming and profiteering of Beale, and the network's lineup for the coming fall, sicken even the strongest stomaches. She is autonomous, without love or direction, she is holstered to William Holden's character for the only comfort and human companionship she can scrounge up. In my own opinion, the Oscars were incorrectly swept in 1976. The loss by Holden is inconceivable, and the historic win of Beatrice Straight, with only five minutes onscreen, is a rebuff of cinematic justice. A rousing commentary, and social invective, this is one of the most original films of the decade.
  • fernandorafael
    May 1, 2011
    fernandorafael
    Network is an engaging look at the cutthroat world of television, with an amazing (if somewhat overwrought) script by Paddy Chayefsky. It's great to see that a film with so much real drama can also have impeccable comic timing. Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty, Marlene Warf... read moreield and especially Faye Dunaway are incredible, despite the fact that it's nearly impossible to identify with any of the characters they portray.
  • mjgildea
    April 27, 2011
    mjgildea
    Every other time I've seen Network I've been able to view it with some level of denial and convince myself that things can't possibly be this deranged. Not this time. While last night's viewing was a more enriching one, I was left with an ominous feeling of defeat knowing that th... read moreings were this bad for much longer than I thought, if not always. Not to say that Network is a manifesto for pessimism but the cruelty, the magnificent acting Chayefsky's brilliant writing and the highly questionable and alleged satire are all astonishing and proof that Network was light years ahead of its time.
  • lewiskendell
    March 29, 2011
    lewiskendell
    "We're not a respectable network. We're a whorehouse network, and we have to take whatever we can get."

    Network is one of those movies that just grabs you. There's no better way to describe it. It's the rare kind of intelligent movie with a point that also more than delivers the... read more entertainment value.

    I don't think it's perfect, however. The story has two main connected threads, and I found the main one far more interesting than the side-plot/love story. I understand how the two aspects reflect each other and converge near the end to reinforce the point of the movie, but that doesn't change the fact that it gave me the feeling that Network was slightly uneven.

    Still, this movie is worth watching for a variety of reasons, including great performances by Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway, some excellent writing, and its commentary on television that's more relevant today than ever.

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Critic Reviews

Richard Schickel
July 18, 2011
Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine

The plot that Paddy Chayefsky has concocted to prove this point is so crazily preposterous that even in post-Watergate America -- where we know that bats can get loose in the corridors of power -- it ... Full Review

Chris Nashawaty
February 17, 2011
Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly

The film's never been more timely. Full Review

Jonathan Rosenbaum
June 26, 2007
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Chayefsky was apparently serious about much of this shrill, self-important 1976 satire about television, interlaced with bile about radicals and pushy career women, and so were some critics at the time. Full Review

Vincent Canby
May 20, 2003
Vincent Canby, New York Times

Network can be faulted both for going too far and not far enough, but it's also something that very few commercial films are these days. It's alive. Full Review

A.D. Murphy
February 13, 2001
A.D. Murphy, Variety

This is a bawdy, stops-out, no-holds-barred story of a TV network that will, quite literally, do anything to get an audience. Full Review

Roger Ebert
January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

When Chayefsky created Howard Beale, could he have imagined Jerry Springer, Howard Stern and the World Wrestling Federation? Full Review

James Berardinelli
January 1, 2000
James Berardinelli, ReelViews

Dunaway's performance in Network remains among her most accomplished. Full Review

Cintra Wilson
January 1, 2000
Cintra Wilson, Salon.com

The greatest screenplay ever to remain undestroyed by Hollywood. Full Review

July 18, 2011
Film4

Fearless, funny and frank television satire that doesn't take any prisoners. Writing, performances and direction are all bang on and Finch cooks on gas throughout. Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson
February 28, 2011
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

the secret to the film's immense popularity, though, is this angry, sudden blast of "truth" -- without being specific -- as if it had never been spoken aloud before. Full Review

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    • Howard Beale: Stand up wherever you are, go to the nearest window, AND YELL AS LOUD AS YOU CAN, I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.
    • Max Schumacher: It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids, and, if I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You are television incarnate, Diana, indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. The daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split-seconds and instant replays. You are madness, Diana, virulent madness, and everything you touch dies with you. Well, not me. Not as long as I can still feel pleasure and pain. And love.
    • Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU, WILL, ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
    • Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'
    • Howard Beale: What is finished, is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being that's finished. It's every single one of you out there that's finished, because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It's a nation of some 200-odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-than-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings, and as replaceable as piston rods... Well, the time has come to say, is dehumanization such a bad word. Because good or bad, that's what is so. The whole world is becoming humanoid - creatures that look human but aren't. The whole world not just us. We're just the most advanced country, so we're getting there first. The whole world's people are becoming mass-produced, programmed, numbered, insensate things.
    • Narrator: This was the story of Howard Beale: The first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.
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  • What actor has appeared in the following films? Network The Natural Bullitt Slingblade  Answer »
  • Who did not win an acting oscar for the movie NETWORK ?  Answer »
  • Who am I? I starred in Thomas Crown Affair, Chinatown, Network, Don Juan de Marco, Mommie Dearest, Bonnie and Clyde and Barfly.  Answer »
  • Four actors have been posthumously nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars. Which of them won the award?  Answer »
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